


love letters

by deathlessaphrodite



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, it's sad lads
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-06 05:02:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18381491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathlessaphrodite/pseuds/deathlessaphrodite
Summary: Varric had wandered into her workshop one day with the half finished plans of what looked to be a mechanical miracle and about a thousand questions. By the end of the night, Varric had all his answers, and Bianca had fallen in love.





	1. bianca

Varric had wandered into her workshop one day with the half finished plans of what looked to be a mechanical miracle and about a thousand questions. By the end of the night, Varric had all his answers, and Bianca had fallen in love.

 

“How much to build it?” He’d asked, as if she could charge him anything.

 

“Nothing, if you name it after me.” He grinned.

 

She built the damn crossbow for him. It took a summer, to get everything right. At least, she tried to drag it out for a summer. The longer it took, the more time he’d spend, hanging around the workshop and touching things he shouldn’t have been. _What’s that do?_ He asked, _That’s a wrench,_ she answered. _What’s that do?_ He asked. _That’s a bolt. It’s for a safe_ , she answered. They went on and on. A perfect summer.

 

He was smart. He didn’t really need her to tell him what a wrench was. He had a lopsided grin, and his hair fluffed up at the ends. It curled when it was wet. He put oil in it, so it looked nice. It made him smell like sandalwood. He barely drank at all, and when he did, he drank wine or rum, something sweet. He had strong hands.

 

“You would’ve made a good smith,” She’d told him, once.

 

He laughed, “I don’t have the patience.” But he did. He waited all summer.

 

She’d catch him staring at her hands, sometimes, when she was working, or her mouth, when she held a charcoal pencil to it. He brought her a candy pink ribbon to hold her hair back with, and she sent away for a dress in that colour.

 

She dragged him to a party - he said he hated parties, but not why - and scandalized her family. He told her she looked like a fine lady in her new dress. She couldn’t tell if he noticed the ribbon holding her hair back. Later, he’d tell her he had.

 

“It’s done,” She said. She could barely believe it herself.

 

“Is it?” He asked. He took her hand.

 

It turned out to be the last happy summer of her life. They swam in the docks, at night, and got shouted at by a guardsman. They took bread and cheese and honeyed wine out to Sundermount, and didn’t come back until they’d watched the sunrise the next morning. They snuck into Bartrand’s parties, and listened to the musicians play their music. Varric played songs for her on a lyre she dragged out of her parents attic. He had a sweet voice - like honeyed wine. She kept thinking that there was nothing she could do to disappoint her parents.

 

They wrote to Bartrand, in the end, her parents. _Bring an end to this foolishness, or there will be consequences._ Bartrand had slapped Varric round the mouth, _What are you, an idiot? What did you think was gonna happen?_ She stood there like a fool. _Don’t, don’t. Leave him be._

 

Varric went around, causing trouble, after that. Smuggling here, a brawl there. He was too smart to get caught doing anything, so she knew he was doing it on purpose. He crawled to her window one night. Before, she’d had one downstairs, near the basement, and her workshop, but they’d moved her up to the third floor after all the trouble.

 

“Come away with me?” He asked.

 

“Where to?” She shouldn't have asked at all. She should’ve sent him away.

 

He dropped a ring in her hand. Cheap copper, with a small garnet in the centre. Varric couldn’t afford diamonds, then, “Anywhere you want. Away from here,”

 

“Find a ship, and we’ll talk,” She’d said. He would, she knew it. He was always as good as his word.

 

The ship was to Antiva, as if her parents wouldn’t find them there, or something. She packed a bag (some clothes, the crossbow plans - the _money_ they could make off those- the candy pink ribbon he’d given her, a hundred years ago). He brought with him only his crossbow, and the clothes he wore, and a pouch full of coins, stolen from his brother. She met him on the docks, with a hood pulled over her head. Varric had joked once that all of Kirkwall could see moonshine bouncing off her fair hair.

 

She remembered him during that summer, the way the sunrise had set his hair on fire. Strong hands, a quick, kind tongue. An easy smile. Not so easy, now, drawn out and strained, pale, like moonshine.

 

“Were you followed?” Was the first thing he said.

 

 _Do you love me?_ Is what she almost answered. Of course he did.

 

“I’m sorry, Varric,” Is what she said, instead.

 

It felt like an anvil had been dropped on her, the way his face fell, “What do you mean?” He reached out to take her hand, but she stepped away.

 

“I’m sorry,” She said, again, digging in her satchel. She pulled out the plans, wrapped in a candy pink bow. A gift, “I’m sorry,” She said, starting to cry. He took the papers from her.

 

“Bianca -”

 

“You never did know when to stop talking, did you?” It was easier to be cruel than sad, “Go home. Forget this,”

 

He didn’t say anything else, but he didn’t forget.

 

She went home and asked her parents to arrange a marriage for her. To someone suitable. Varric wrote to her, and she wrote back. Mostly the exchange of pleasantries. _Mother died,_ he wrote, _Bartrand is beside himself, with joy or grief, I cannot tell._ He still made her laugh. _I love you, I love you, I love you,_ he wrote, and she had to burn the letter, but she remembered.

  
  
  



	2. hawke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second year she spent in Kirkwall, she spent mostly in Varric’s palatial suit at The Hanged Man. Looking back, she couldn’t even count the hours - how long they’d spent bent over maps into the Deep Roads, following up rumours Varric had dug up from somewhere, drinking and telling stories, fantastic and improbable. Whenever staying Gamlen’s had gotten too much - The Hanged Man. Whenever she was hurt - The Hanged Man. Whenever she just wanted someone to talk to - The Hanged Man.

The second year she spent in Kirkwall, she spent mostly in Varric’s palatial suit at The Hanged Man. Looking back, she couldn’t even count the hours - how long they’d spent bent over maps into the Deep Roads, following up rumours Varric had dug up from somewhere, drinking and telling stories, fantastic and improbable. Whenever staying Gamlen’s had gotten too much - The Hanged Man. Whenever she was hurt - The Hanged Man. Whenever she just wanted someone to talk to - The Hanged Man. 

 

It was warm, and quiet, and where they all congregated. It would not have been so but for Varric’s presence; they all loved The Hanged Man, but if he wasn’t there all the time it would’ve been another shitty, hole-in-the-wall tavern with piss and ale on the floor and drunk serving girls.

 

The night after Ketojan murdered himself - after the Qun murdered him - Hawke crawled into Varric’s bed. He wasn’t asleep, either. 

 

“Am I a good person?” She asked, mumbling against the bedclothes, “Did I do enough?”

 

“If you think you’re the only person thinking that today, you’ve got a bigger head than I thought,” He said, huffing a laugh. He wouldn’t look her in the eye. She wondered if he’d ever seen a man burn to death before. 

 

“I just keep wondering if I could’ve done something,”

 

“With the way things are going, Hawke,” He turned his head to face her, tired, “I think you’ll be thinking that a lot,” 

 

He had a knack for precognition. Bethany went to the Wardens. They moved into Hightown, and hung the Amell crest above the door again. Bethany wrote to them, measured, murmured letters. She had been so happy, so quiet, had always suffered alone. Now she was suffering, somewhere far away. 

 

When Varric finished  _ Swords and Shields,  _ they all gathered into his room at The Hanged Man, and, huddled on the floor under blankets and rugs and suffocating under pillows, listened to him read it aloud. They gasped in all the right places. Sebastian and Merrill blushed at the smutty bits, Isabela and Fenris snorted at the bawdy jokes, Aveline glowered affectionately from the corner. Varric glowed under praise, and he found it in his family. 

 

She fought the Arishok, and it almost killed her, and Varric wrote it all down. Kirkwall burned, and Varric wrote it down. The world fell apart, and he wrote it down. 

 

The city was mostly ash, by the time she left. Varric saw her off at the docks. They were all fleeing - Merrill went to the hills, Anders further inland, to try and incite more rebellion in more Circles, Fenris stalking slavers like a wolf. Isabela waited on her ship, for Hawke. Aveline was in the Viscount’s Keep, trying to save people, like always. 

 

“Come with us,” She asked, for the last time. It wasn’t the first. 

 

“I’m sorry,” He said, “I am. Someone’s gotta save this shit city,” 

 

“Won’t be me, for once,” She smiled because she didn’t want to cry. She did 

anyway.   

 

He held out a hand for her take. They shook, “Goodbye, Champion,”

 

She didn’t say anything else. Just turned to go, walking up the gangplank, away from her city -  _ his  _ city - and her friend. 

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'd like someone to explain to me why i can only write sad things

**Author's Note:**

> hello i hope you enjoy! this is part of a little series of ficlets from the pov of different people who have loved varric. it is essentially a very long winded way of talking abt how much i love varric


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